There is evidence Governor Christie knew about the lane closures on the George Washington Bridge as they were happening in September, a former executive at the Port Authority contended Friday, directly challenging the governor’s previous statements about the scandal.

Gov. Chris Christie and his wife, Mary Pat, with Port Authority officials on Sept. 11, 2013, the 12-year anniversary of the 9/11 World Trade Center attack.

A lawyer for David Wildstein, a onetime Christie loyalist who orchestrated the closures, wrote in a letter that "evidence exists ...tying Mr. Christie to having knowledge of the lane closures, during the period when the lanes were closed, contrary to what the Governor stated publicly in a two-hour press conference."

It was the first time that anyone in Christie’s circle claimed the governor knew about the closures while Fort Lee was paralyzed in a four-day traffic jam, raising the stakes as federal prosecutors look into whether a crime was committed. But the carefully worded letter did not cite the specific evidence or say whether Christie knew of the motivation behind the closures, apparently an act of political revenge. Still, it landed like a bombshell two days before North Jersey hosts its first Super Bowl at MetLife Stadium and three days before massive amounts of records subpoenaed by an investigative committee of the state legislature were due for delivery.

“Mr. Wildstein’s lawyer confirms what the Governor has said all along — he had absolutely no prior knowledge of the lane closures before they happened and whatever Mr. Wildstein’s motivations were for closing them to begin with,” the office said in the statement. “As the Governor said in a December 13th press conference, he only first learned lanes were closed when it was reported by the press and as he said in his January 9th press conference, had no indication that this was anything other than a traffic study until he read otherwise the morning of January 8th. The Governor denies Mr. Wildstein’s lawyer’s other assertions.”

At the heart of the seeming contradiction was an interplay at a Dec. 13 press conference held by the governor as he announced the departure of his top operational executive at the Port Authority, Bill Baroni, who was implicated in the growing scandal.

At the conference, he responded to this question from The Record’s John Reitmeyer.

“Governor, when this was going on, when the lanes were closed for the traffic study the beginning of September, coinciding with the start of school, traffic got real bad. Was it ever raised to your attention during that?” Reitmeyer asked.

“Never. No,” Christie responded, explaining that not even Patrick Foye, the agency’s New York-appointed executive director, knew about the closures until four days into them. “So if it didn’t get to the executive director of the Port Authority, you can guarantee it didn’t get to me. A, factually, it did not get to me. The first I ever heard about the issue was when it was reported in the press, which I think was in the aftermath of the leaking of Mr. Foye’s email. I think that was the first I heard of it. It was certainly well after the whole thing was over before I heard about it.”

Late Friday night, in an attempt to further support the governor’s case that he first learned about the closures from press accounts, the office issued a second statement that included a link to the first story about the lane closures. That was The Record’s Road Warrior column published Sept. 13, the day the lanes were re-opened.

Against a backdrop of past Christie assertions and rapidly intensifying investigations by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Newark and the state Legislature, the letter from Wildstein’s attorney, Alan Zegas, is likely to send the controversy spiraling to an even deeper level. The legal ramifications for all involved can be great, and Christie’s persona as a straight-talking, straight-dealing leader hangs in the balance of who is right and what actually happened.

The claims by Wildstein were also remarkable because of his past ties to the governor and his perceived loyalty.

Wildstein went to high school with Christie, although they were a year apart. The governor recommended him for a newly created $150,000-a-year position at the Port Authority, director of interstate capital projects, in 2010. Wildstein had a reputation as a political operative inside the bi-state agency and a fierce enforcer of the administration’s agenda.

At his two-hour press conference in January, Christie said he could “probably count on one hand the number of conversations” he had with his former schoolmate while Wildstein was at the Port Authority. At least one of those came on the third day of the lane closures, when photos obtained by The Record show the two talking at the 9/11 Memorial site in lower Manhattan at an anniversary ceremony.

“Mr. Wildstein contests the accuracy of various statements that the Governor made about him and he can prove the inaccuracy of some,” Zegas wrote in the letter.

The letter also touched on other damaging controversies that have grown out of the lane closure scandal — including reports in The Record earlier this week about land deals around the Harrison PATH station. It appeared to be a reminder that Wildstein, once a central figure in Christie’s team at the Port Authority, could have information that might be helpful to several investigations under way. But it was unclear if the letter, released to several media outlets, was aimed at enticing federal prosecutors to grant Wildstein immunity from criminal prosecution.

Wildstein’s attorney has publicly said his client would tell his side of the story if he was granted immunity from criminal prosecution by New Jersey, New York and the U.S. Department of Justice.

Asked if the U.S. Attorney’s Office was aware of Wildstein’s attorney’s allegations and whether it was investigating Christie’s possible knowledge of the lane closures, spokeswoman Rebekah Carmichael said, “We can’t discuss the specifics of an ongoing inquiry.”

The letter from Wildstein’s attorney was a response to the Port Authority’s decision not to pay Wildstein’s legal bills.

The Port Authority’s lawyer wrote to Wildstein last week that paying his legal bills “would not be warranted under the Port Authority’s by-laws.”

“I would request that you kindly reconsider the Port Authority’s decision to deny Mr. Wildstein payment of his legal fees and indemnification,” Wildstein’s attorney wrote Friday.

In an indication of fractures between Christie’s former allies, Wildstein’s attorney also questioned why a request for legal representation by Baroni was still under consideration. Baroni, Zegas wrote, told a committee, while not under oath, that the lane closures were part of a traffic study, “answers directly at variance with” the subsequent sworn testimony of the agency’s executive director, Pat Foye.

Wildstein’s attorney also wrote that a Port Authority lawyer advised Baroni before he went before the legislative committee and defended what he described as a traffic study. “The counseling, as I understand it, was conducted over a period of four to five days, and Mr. Wildstein was present for much of it.” The letter does not name the attorney who advised Baroni, but Governor Christie has placed several attorneys tied to his administration in the Port Authority’s legal department.

The release of the letter came days before a critical moment in the legislative investigation into the lane closures. Responses to 20 subpoenas issued by a joint panel are due Monday, but at least one key player challenged the authority of the committee’s demands for documents. And it capped a week when new questions were raised about Christie loyalists at the Port Authority and even the governor’s brother.

David Samson, the chairman of the Port Authority and a close adviser of the governor, voted for a $256 million reconstruction of the PATH station in Harrison months after a client of his private law firm proposed building luxury apartments nearby, The Record reported this week. And Christie’s brother, Todd Christie, and two business partners began buying residential lots just before the announcement of the station overhaul — championed by Christie — and selling improved properties afterward.

The Wildstein letter made veiled references to those reports, as well as to reports that “Port Authority funds were allocated to projects connected to persons who supported the administration of Governor Christie or whose political support he sought, with some of the projects having no relationship to the business of the Port Authority, and that Port Authority funds were held back from those who refused to support the Governor.”

Also on Friday, there were signs that at least one person who received a subpoena from the joint legislative panel investigating the closures was fighting it.

The lawyer representing Christie’s former campaign manager Bill Stepien sent a lengthy letter to the legislative panel invoking his client’s constitutional protection against self-incrimination. The letter from attorney Kevin Marino cites an ongoing federal grand jury investigation and states that there’s a possibility that documents Stepien provides “might compel him to furnish a link in the chain of evidence that could be used to ensnare him in the ambiguous circumstances of a criminal prosecution.”

Stepien, Marino wrote, is innocent of any wrongdoing, criminal or otherwise.

Stepien is one of 18 individuals who got subpoenas from the state legislative panel.

Assemblyman John Wisniewski said Friday that lawyers for most of the individuals have asked for time extensions or will provide documents on a rolling basis “within a reasonable timeframe.”

Wisniewski said he does expect some documents to be handed over Monday.

“We’ll start getting some documents on Monday, and I think we’ll get a lot by the end of the week. Then we’ll have to start the intensive process of reviewing them,” said Wisniewski, a Middlesex Democrat.

The two heads of the committee, Wisniewski and state Sen. Loretta Weinberg of Teaneck, issued a joint statement saying they “will consider” the Wildstein letter as their investigation continues.

Staff Writers Melissa Hayes and John Reitmeyer contributed to this article. Email: boburg@northjersey.com